Align Technology, Inc.
INTRAORAL SCANNING SYSTEM WITH EXCESS MATERIAL REMOVAL BASED ON MACHINE LEARNING

Abstract:

A system includes an intraoral scanner and a computing device. The intraoral scanner generates an intraoral scan of a dental site. The computing device processes an input comprising data from the intraoral scan using a trained machine learning model that has been trained to classify regions of dental sites, wherein the trained machine learning model generates an output comprising, for each point in the intraoral scan, an indication as to whether the point belongs to a first dental class that represents excess material. The computing device determines, based on the output, one or more points in the intraoral scan that are classified as excess material. The computing device then hides or removes, from at least one of the intraoral scan or a virtual three-dimensional (3D) model generated using the intraoral scan, data for the one or more points that are classified as excess material.